Shoelace Philosophy
by mako-lies
Summary: Yuffie takes Aeris's death rather harder than expected.


Nobody sleeps that night. Too shocked, too hurt, and the silence reminds her too much of the night Godo signed the treaty. Yuffie glances up at the sky and it is nearly one in the morning—

 _Ten hours, ten hours since they let Aeris sink and sink and sink, her hair streaming and the pool slicked red with blood like oil, and Cloud was drenched in her red red red—_

Yuffie gulps in air like a fish and keeps staring at the sky. The stars are still there and so is the moon and they're just all up there like nothing's changed. Leviathan, it's almost like everything has changed and it wasn't supposed to be like this. Death doesn't affect Yuffie anymore because she's too awesome to get attached to anything that isn't Wutai anymore, but here she is bleeding out just like Aeris bled, except not from any actual wound.

How many times is Sephiroth going to take it fucking all?

Her stomach clenches hard in this terrible, horrible sort of way and she puts her hand over it. She puts her hand over that place where Aeris got run through and Yuffie is whole, and what is that, anyway? How is it that Aeris is just gone while people like Yuffie and Vincent and Rufus Shinra are still here? How is it that no shruiken or bullet or spear or spell got Sephiroth before the katana slid home?

It doesn't make any sense, but it never does.

Yuffie stares hard at her hands; she stares at the calluses and all the scars she has earned by being a bad bad ninja. She remembers lacing fingers with Aeris and running out into the Wutain surf and Aeris had said she'd never seen anything like it, like she wasn't angry at all.

Forgiveness doesn't make any sense, either.

(Yuffie doesn't think she'd ever been forgiven for anything before. It was a terrible, horrible thing because it made her want to be a better person. Maybe since Aeris is dead, Yuffie doesn't have to try to live up to that whole forgiveness thing anymore.)

Cloud still hasn't gotten the blood out from under his fingernails and Yuffie can't figure out why it's so hard. He was a SOLDIER, he knows how to clean blood out of anything, just like she does. Honestly, she's almost ready to go over there and show him how, except that would break this whole pact of silence thing they've all got going, and she really doesn't want to talk yet. He sort of glances over when he feels her looking, then hunches over his hands again.

She looks down at her stolen yellow sneakers, like maybe her shoelaces can force all this shit to make sense, except they can't, because they're just shoelaces. They don't really _do_ philosophy, but Yuffie normally doesn't either, and here she is, in all her raw, tear-swollen glory wondering _why_.

Her hands shake when she pulls out one of her kunai knives, because it gives her hands something to do and her eyeballs something to look at that isn't her dumb shoelaces that won't answer her questions. Of course, the knife is clean and sharp. It would never be anything else because she is a warrior and warriors take care of their weapons. Above everything, she is a warrior, has always been a warrior. She probably did badass ninja flips in the womb and everything.

Yuffie Kisaragi takes no shit, is strong and fierce, and she has been losing important things since she was a kid. Just because Aeris is dead doesn't mean she'll fall apart.

Water gathers in her eyes and she shakes her head, blinking and blinking and blinking because she is Yuffie Kisaragi and she is above this dumb common grief. Aeris may be gone, but they've all got a job to do.

In the morning, they'll need to get moving, need to keep fighting. Because Sephiroth isn't going to kill himself. They may have lost this battle, but they've got a war to win. And Yuffie is going to make sure they win it, because there is no way in hell she's letting Sephiroth get away with all he's done. If she gets some prime materia in the deal, well, such is the way of things.

For now, the others can keep mourning if they like, but she is Yuffie Kisaragi—loss has never broken her and it won't start now.

She puts her kunai away and then stretches. Her bedroll is super comfy and warm when she curls into it, but when she closes her eyes, Aeris's blood is everywhere and her body is sinking and sinking; Yuffie rolls over, hugging herself tight like she did the night Wutai burned and imagines what her hands will look like coated in Sephiroth's blood. It's enough.

That night, nobody except Yuffie sleeps.


End file.
